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Gallery: Keep Your Creatives Creative

We took some direction from Arkansas State University graphic design professor and creative professional Nikki Arnell about how to keep fellow creatives at the top of their game to ensure innovation and top performance.

Dallas, TX

As new leadership is elected for our American Advertising Federation 10th District chapter, Kristina Myers (1st VP and second year board member), Erica Sluder (2nd VP and first year board member), and Brittany Sims (Treasurer and first year board member) took advantage of the exciting opportunity to attend the AAF 10th District Officers Training meetup in Dallas, TX.

Dallas’ MCM Elegante was filled with around 80 quirky, creative professionals who were passionate about the AAF and their local clubs. Everyone there was excited to attend and to learn, which made our board members feel at home.

During introductions, our board members shared the passion that their fellow attendees expressed for learning and helping their local clubs thrive. Myers, Sluder, and Sims were the only representatives from the entire state of Arkansas, and were enthusiastically welcomed.

Our representatives spent more than 7 hours learning from advertising veterans like Joanne Schecter, Keith Powell, Susan Cook, Marc Eisenberg, Blake Goldston, Allison Farris, Larry Brantley, and Bill Richmond, many of which sit on the AAF National Board. Between the three, they returned with notebooks full of notes and ideas, but their top three takeaways from the training were the same.

The core product of the AAF is relationships.

It’s important to remember that a large benefit of AAF is creating and fostering relationships. The relationships that members form in AAF can lead to job opportunities, business partnerships, and friendships.

Get members involved in everything you do.

Member involvement is a key takeaway; it’s important to make our AAF members feel as if they have ownership of the club. We want our members to enjoy their involvement with AAF enough to tell their colleagues and friends about their club chapter.

Showcase member talents.

This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s not done enough. Our chapter has incredibly talented members, and our AdFed leadership want to show off these various talents in workshops, speaking engagements, and so on over the course of the next year.

The board members had a great time learning, networking and building relationships with neighboring district chapters and look forward to serving our chapter to the best of their abilities. The 2017–2018 year will be the best yet!